Game Play: Puzzle Quest

I'm probably the last DS owner on the planet to try this title, but I'm really glad I did. Essentially Bejeweled shoved into a light RPG - I'm completely addicted to it. And honestly, I was never that big of a Bejeweled fan.

Mechanically speaking, my favorite part is that it is one of those games you can play for any period of time. Play a little combat, flip off the DS. Or quest around for an hour. It's simple, it's addictive and it's fun.

I had some prototypes of interactive fiction which used a card game for combat - I might take some notes here as I was considering moving that concept to Flex (which technologically speaking has taken over my world).

DVD Watch: The Host

For the unfamiliar, although I imagine that would be few of you considering the buzz the movie got, The Host is a South Korean horror flick - a creature caper as it were.

What's most interesting about the movie is its ability to revitalize a genre which quite honestly hasn't gotten much farther than having some guy run around in a latex suit. Yet with The Host you can see a touch of what made movies like the original Godzilla so great. There's aspects of tragedy and disaster thrown in and by the time you get through the impressively early debut of the film's namesake (most monster films wait until at least midway through to build tension) - you'll see what the buzz was all about. The Host is scary fun.

Its also more than a little uneven. It can't always pick up from the same tone it had just a scene earlier. There's melodrama for comedic effect, surrealism for ... well confusion I think, and even the occasional slapstick. The movie feels a little soft in the middle.

Fortunately, it is sharp on the edges. The early scenes and the last quarter of the movie are gripping and entertaining. The movie stumble sometimes, but strides more often than not. Highly recommend.

BioShock's Lost Plasmids

A perspective 2K Games forum member, using the PC version of the game, uncovered several .ini files that contain not only a downloadable content announcement but also unused plasmids that are in the game but aren't implemented. Potential spoilers are ahead, so beware.

The unused plasmids names include Machine Buster, Vending Expert, Sonic Boom and EVE Saver. Sonic Boom, for example, is listed as being able to "hurl creatures and objects back with a blast of force." An option called "LockedContent" is set to true on all four plasmids, so one can guess that these are planned DLC.

In addition, it appears a whole section of plasmids was cut from the game too. They're called Ecology Plasmids and include a plasmid called Drone Neutral Dampening Field Plasmid, which has drones take longer to sound their alarms.

As of writing, 2K hasn't announced any plans to release any DLC or a level editor for BioShock. Previous 2K games, such as The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, had a robust level editing community and thousands of mods and custom levels are readily available for the game. Hopefully BioShock fans can get their hands on an editor in the future too."

-- Is 2K Games planning BioShock DLC?

Still very much enjoying the game and really wish they'd release an SDK for it. The Unreal engine is insanely mod friendly and it always gives me a bit of the annoyance when I can't jump in and try and muck with stuff.

Children Learn To Aim And Shoot With Wii

Speaking of idiotic sound bites:

Most people think it's a bone-headed idea.

"Great, this is what we need. Children with guns learning how to aim and shoot. Then we can sit back and wonder what is happening to our country with kids killing kids......what's next? Could we make it squirt blood, too" one reader commented

A "very concerned grandparent" wrote:
"....Why don't they enclose an application to the NRA in every box as well....the marketing person who came up with this brain child of an idea should be fired."

Another reader commented, "I think it's irresponsible for Wii to come out with a controller that looks like a gun so kids can play games simulating shooting. What kind of message are we sending as parents when we buy these things for our kids?"

-- What do we think of Wii? [Star-Ledger]

Why is it that some newspapers feel their role is not to inform but simply feed into people's fears? Light gun games have been around for most of modern gaming history - and quite like the Thompsonian suggestion that the PlayStation turns kids into trained homicidal assasins - they number of skilled snipers which were turned out by Duck Hunt remains at the low, low number of zero.

For the love of Jeebus, I'm a veteran of Duck Hunt, Laser Tag and nearly every first person shooter ever created and I stand here before you to say I suck something royal with a real firearm. I've fired bolt-actions, revolvers and semi-autos and I gotta say ... I'm more dangerous with a bow and arrow.

And let's cover this little concept - aiming and shooting isn't really something you need to learn. It's a pretty straightforward idea. Takes about three seconds to pick up. And unless you've kept your kid from watching every western, action and most sci fi shows ever made - they already get it.

Wonder how many of these "concerned parents" have bought their lovely children a water gun.

GamerDad's Heart Attack

Andrew Bub, known to some as GamerDad and the founder of the parent friendly review site, GamerDad.com recently underwent a quadrapole bypass surgery for a heart attack and apparently will need additional surgery. As anyone who has lived with the American health care system can imagine - this can create something of a financial burden to those invovled.

So GamerMom is kindly asking for your quarters to help out. I interviewed Andrew a few years back and can attest he's a heck of a guy and the real deal. In a culture where idiotic sound bites generally wins out over rational discourse, Andrew's actually trying to give parents a legitimate dialog in which to understand games. So if you have a moment and few spare nickels, help them out.

TV Watch: West Wing, Season One

Because TV has been its off-season, we've been catching up on show with Netflix. We finished Deadwood and started West Wing from the beginning, in part because of numerous recommendations over the years.

It is quite good - and I'm willing to concede now that as pure television West Wing exceeds Sports Night. It's more grown up. More mature. Less, as many would put it, maudlin. It hasn't unseated Sports Night as my favorite though - because part of likes to pull out that maudlin, that simple swoop and dive approach to emotions and events, compared to the more subtle threads of West Wing.

Still, we're enjoyed the heck out of season one and can't wait for the second. In fact, I'm off to see if Pandora can load up "The Jackal" right now.

Overheard In Chicago

"I'm tired because I've been at a baby shower all day drinking tequila."

and this morning...

"Lynette, your mom knows I don't mess around. I ain't doing blow. Here's what happened. I'll tell you what happened. I sound like crap because this guy yesterday kept giving me Xanax. And that's what happened."

So excellent. During my walk I've also seen a crazy guy trying to flirt with a drunk woman, a crazy guy follow a woman (different couple) into traffic - almost getting hit by an oncoming ambulance, and have been followed by a guy swearing repeatedly into a cell phone that certainly did not have anyone on the other end.

And people wondered why I missed working downtown.

TV Watch: Torchwood, Season One

Through the magic of the Internet, we finished the first season of Torchwood last night - with all its sexy romps and cursewords intact. For the unfamiliar, Torchwood is a Doctor Who spin-off starring John Barrowman, reprising his role as Captain Jack Harkness from the series.

I'll just sum it up quickly and then go into detail - it is fun, although not nearly as good as the good Doctor.

One of the primary hangups I have is with the premise. In the Doctor Who mythos, Torchwood is a long-standing secret organization chartered to defend the Earth from aliens and other bugaboos. Up until recently, modern history wise, they were somewhat large and powerful, if not bureaucratic and mad with power. After a climatic moment, it somewhat collapsed.

Something apparently transpired to reduce it down to the Cardiff branch which apparently was run by Jack. So now this ultra secret group which at one point could direct huge lasers into space ... is Jack and a handful of people who are honestly pretty bad at their job. Heck, the pilot episode primarily focuses on how bad they are at their job. They break rules, they sleep around (with all manner of life forms), and frequently endanger everyone around them - if not the whole world. They do all this while driving around to crime scenes (which we have no idea how they found) in the auspiciously black with blinking LED's Ranger Rover and announcing they're Torchwood (apparently to keep their existence more secret).

The revival of Doctor Who has masterfully explored the source material and offered a very sensible platform for episodes. Torchwood never quite accomplishes this - even up until a moment in the finale when they're expected to more or less save the world(a notion which scares essentially everyone).

That's not to say the show has no merit. There are still some interesting concepts at work and the episodes which are easily the best essentially play off the loose nature of the organization and stray away from a simple mystery format. The writing is good even if it isn't terribly tight and here the mature content pays off ... it's a lot easier to stop caring about the premise with the promise of violence, sex and swearing. That might sound juvenile, but Torchwood handles its material in a way more realistic and gritty than your late night Cinemax special. Sex, drugs, even alien artifacts - all have consequences.

The show has a great ensemble as well. Barrowman proved himself on the screen in Doctor Who. So, apparently, did Eve Myles as she is a returnee from The Unquiet Dead - albeit not as the same character. Myles has nearly anime features and communicates brilliantly with her face. Ab Fab fans might recognize Toshiko - same actress played Saffie's friend Sarah.

It's a good show. It's a fun show. Not a great show - but since the episodes get progressively better I'm pretty optimistic for Season Two. Torchwood is pretty unique for science fiction - a decent production with adult content that takes itself moderately seriously. Just the diversity alone is worth the price of admission.

For Sunday: Hello Kitty Wedding

Too weird to pass up:



Via Tokyomango.

Big Brain Upgrade

For the CheapBox++ last night. Installed a Pentium 4 3Ghz and 2GB of RAM. Was pretty damn easy, except for nearly losing a finger to those darn retention arms on the heatsink. The Girl and I discovered those are best accomplished with two man teams.

BioShock plays at full clip with a 1024x768 resolution keeping all the bells and whistles, or 1280 with a most of the fancy rendering features turned off. I'll have to see whether this means the machine has a new lease on life for upcoming titles like Unreal Tournament III (which I imagine will be even more intensive than BioShock).

Course, now I have a Celeron D and some old RAM chips laying around.

Game Play: BioShock Mechanics

As Winkyboy pointed out in a recent comment, BioShock is something of a mixed bag when it comes to the nuts and bolts of the gameplay. I'm not talking about the excellent use of the Unreal engine or the amazing water effects - I think we can all agree BioShock looks good.

And it plays good - don't get me wrong there either. In fact, it plays better than 90% of the shooters ever made. It's solid and holds its own against heavyweights like Deus Ex.

But how does it hold it up against heavyweights like System Shock? Or System Shock 2? It's easier to compare them since it is a direct development evolution. BioShock clearly pulls from System Shock 2's playbook. It corrects some things and simplifies some things - with interesting outcomes.

Firstly, the use of plasmids and other mods seems more user friendly to me than SS2's power ups. Here the streamlined nature, while not providing nearly as much variety as Deus Ex did, is a lot more user friendly than SS2. It feels harder to have a bad set of mods and the frequently available Gene banks makes sure your decisions can be temporary.

Which brings us to the Little Sisters. Winky pointed out that as ethical decisions go - this is a pretty light one. Oddly, I've heard arguments for both sides - either always harvesting or always rescuing the girls. Personally, I've fallen on the latter simply because the gift mods seem to offset the additional Adam one might get - and I haven't really been starving for Adam anyway. The Big Daddies provide mini-boss fights sprinkled throughout the game and quite honestly the whole setup seems magnificent.

I'm enjoying the hacking minigame as well, although there seems to be little punishment for failing. Sure, you get hurt and sure eventually you might get assaulted by security drones ... but why waste an autohack or cash?

Especially when you have the Vita-Chambers. I can't get a handle on these things ... if I like them or not. I think they are better than many of the alternatives. Basically a combination of quick save (which is either absent by design or the save files or too big to allow) and checkpoints - they are at least very convenient. They seem to make the game really easy though - and if that doesn't at least draw away from immersion it takes away some of the scare factor.

Which is a shame, because it is one of the game's real strengths.

I only have one real suggestion - but first, let's talk about the weapon modification and invention system. I love that you can collect random objects, put them in that bottomless pocket all shooter heroes are equipped with, and then convert them into something useful ... like bullets. So why can't I take the rubber hose, some batteries, a sump pump or whatnot, and increase the damage on my shotgun?

Well, clearly because that might make the game too easy. Halfway through the game you'd have a full set of souped up weapons.

Two things would have adjusted for that - one being a mod system more like Deus Ex's where weapons can only be upgraded to a certain point. So you could turn that assault rifle into a high rate of fire sniper - but not a cannon. Also if there was a penalty to dying.

How does the Vita-Chamber reconstruct all my weapons anyway? I suppose it teleports me wholesale, fixes me up and sends me on my way. But that's some deathgrip I've got on the shotgun there.

It would have been interesting to use a Halo style inventory, with only a couple of weapons capable of being held, and you lose whatever gun you had on hand when you died. If you had another one, you get to keep that. You can try and go back and fight your way back to your gun, or get a new one.

Just something so that I can't use a strategy of constantly bum rushing my enemy right after death.

Winky also pointed out that some of the design decisions seem to be console-biased ... a trend which is becoming more and more pervasive for PC games.

Anyway, it is a great game - and with the Big Brain upgrade for the CheapBox++, plays great now. I really wish they would release an editor and SDK for it though, because I'd love to try some different concepts with it.

I've also got a rant on BioShock's story. how it falls in line with Valve's notion of a narrative (and that's not a good thing) coming forth, but I feel I should finish the game first.

Note From Management: Somewhat Incommunicado

Crazy busy at the new job, so I hardly have any time to browse through the feeds. Even with my nifty new starred items overview page, which I'll share with the class next week, I can't keep up with the news right now. Will be like this through at least the next couple of weeks.

So in honor of this occasion, I bring a picture of a girl talking in one cell phone while texting in another:

Long Load Times? Crashes To Desktop? Try Some Tonic!*

* - I don't actually have any tonic. Still it's one of my favorite words, at least for the moment.

So I had BioShock running pretty well last night - and allow me to share with class just how I got it that way because it wasn't terribly straightforward (and probably won't be until I get the new hardware upgrades).

The problem is, I think, that with just around 1GB of memory - games loading large textures off the hard drive and into memory conflict with existing system resources (and with Windows XP ... those are often somewhat considerable). Hence doing something like loading a large level and binding these textures taxes virtually everything at once ... and if anything goes wrong in the process you get your Crash To Desktop (or complete lockup).

So here are some tips which might help:

Defrag
Everything you can - even if it doesn't need it. Optimize the drive so that the files won't at least take as long to load and might reduce read errors (this was actually all I had to do to get BioShock to load the first time).

Virtual Memory
If you have the HD space and you've defragged, it seems to work best to increase the page size for the virtual memory. I've got two setup on two partitions - system and the one with Steam on it. I've read posts which go back and forth on this point but this is where I ended up yesterday, so there you go.

Go Low Res
At least at first. Arcadia simply refused to load for me last night until I reduced the game down to 640x480 at low graphics and reloaded. Your mileage may vary, especially if this is not BioShock we're talking about here, but after I got the game to load the first time I could crank everything back up a modest amount. Last night I was playing at 1280x1024, high textures and models - but with a handful of the rendering options turned off.

Hope that helps. Course, RAM is cheap these days and may be the solution in the long run.

Game Play: BioShock

I downloaded BioShock Sunday morning in the hopes of getting a few hours with it this weekend. I had downloaded the demo from Steam and since we had an In-Law weekend, I wasn't getting to Best Buy anyway, so I went ahead and downloaded the full version as well.

So it seems that despite myself, I'm getting used to Steam as a delivery method.

I can tell that BioShock is largely the game that was promised - if not completely overhyped. Which is good, because this is the kind of shooter we've needed for a while. This is the kind of shooter that Doom III wanted to be and is the first shooter that really rivals Valve's accomplishments in terms of setting mood and environment. What's quite excellent about much of BioShock is not the set pieces where there are predetermined portions of animation (although those are quite good and often very spooky) - BioShock best delivers when it offers somewhat random moments. Like when I got ambushed heading for a teddy bear by a spider slicer.

See, statements like that aren't possible with lesser games.

There's some interesting mechanics at play here, but I'll save that for a later post. Foremost my concern with the game is that it is totally bring the CheapBox++ to its knees. High detail will, in fact, crash the game more often than not. This digg thread sums up much of my experiences - long load times, erratic jumps to desktop, etc.

If Oblivion hadn't been guilty of the same, I'd be much more inclined to blame the software over the hardware - but the similarity is too much. Reducing the graphics load in either situation seems to smooth things out. So I might pick up some more RAM in the near future to see if that helps the old box out, or perhaps finally look into upgrading the CPU.

What I'm not going to do is buy a new video card, or invest in a new chassis or anything like that. Pretty much any component approaching the price of a 360. I'm somewhat pessimistic towards the future of gaming with it if Oblivion and BioShock can tear the heck out of it. However, RAM is cheap and I've wanted to try and put a proper Pentium in it for a while ... so if that isn't too expensive, we'll wait and see.

Book Review: Blindsight

I finished Blindsight by Peter Watts a little while ago, having found that it was released via Creative Commons and hence perfect for shoving onto the phone for reading when I got a chance.

I'm not a big reader anymore - which is a slight character flaw considering I've got an undergrad's in English and love to write. If I can get more things that will fit on the phone, I might stand a better chance of finishing more books since I've pretty muc always got my phone on me.

As for the book - it is really damn good. It is hard science fiction with dashes of speculative. Watts is a biologist and it shows ... the choice quote for the book is Stross' "Imagine a neurobiology-obsessed version of Greg Egan writing a first contact with aliens story from the point of view of a zombie posthuman crewman aboard a starship captained by a vampire, with not dying as the boobie prize."

Actually that quote isn't terribly accurate - but not worth nitpicking for the details. Blindsight is an extremely cerebral read, but that's where the strength lies. Watts has methodically thought out nearly every aspect of his backdrop and in some ways his appendix describing how he derived certain concepts is just as much fun to read.

I'm strongly considering, even though it would probably disqualify me because it wouldn't have the word count and much of it wouldn't be original, to write a screenplay based on Blindsight for NaNoWriMo this year. It would just be an interesting exercise to go into an existing novel and edit the hell out of it, methinks.

Anyway - strongly recommend.